Yeah, repeating climbs is a combination of strength and fitness. Strength is how you get up one climb. Fitness is how you do climb after climb. Basically, fitness means you can recover between climbs, with the second often being faster than the first. I don't really know how this works, but my experience is that riding frequently (every day) forces the body to recover between those daily rides, and somehow that causes a training adaptation that allows the body also to recover between climbs. So keep up those short, daily, easy rides. Don't go for the gusto just because you start to feel a little better. At first, gradually increase the length of all your rides. And take that whey protein.

And like Machka says, cut it out with all the stretching and massaging. Leave 'em alone, or if you must, don't do it for more than 15 minutes.